The Marshall Thundering Heard come, well, thundering down I-64 to meet the Kentucky Wildcats in battle today in storied Rupp Arena. Game particulars as follows via UKAthletics.com:

Gameday Information
Kentucky vs. Marshall Sat., Dec. 22 - 4:00 p.m. ET Lexington, Ky. Game Notes: UK | MU
Coverage
Gameday Live: Online audio, blog and stats TV: ESPN2 Radio: UK IMG Text Updates

The Thundering Herd are coming off a victory at home over Savannah St., but have been unsuccessful challenging any top 50 teams this year. Making things worse for the Herd is the fact that their leading scorer and best player, DeAndre Kane, will be a spectator due to a hand injury.

For Kentucky, this has been the last full week of Camp Cal, and hopefully, we will see the fruits of this effort today. Some of those fruits would be:

• Better overall conditioning. This seems to be on an uptick over the last two games, so this expectation should be fulfilled to some extent;
• Better communication. Well, we'll see.
• Better rebounding. This has got to improve or UK is in for a tough stretch in the immediate future, beginning with the Louisville Cardinals.
• More intensity. Again, we shall see.
• A half-court offense that doesn't look dysfunctional.
• A transition game that doesn't suck out loud.
• Better free-throw shooting as a team.

I doubt we'll see all of those, but at this point, I'd take the majority of them as a good sign. This Kentucky team has been going through 3-a-days for the last 2.5 weeks, and if they can't come together after that, you have to wonder if they ever will.

Basketball is a team sport, and this team has yet to really play like one. Let's hope today is the first time.

Go, 'Cats!